Photography and Nostalgia in the Art Market
How will the emotional impact of COVID-19 continue to affect the art market?
Background
During times of crisis, we reach for what feels safe and familiar. Nostalgia can help to combat feelings of loneliness and can even double as a resource to support psychological health and overall well being. It is what created a longing for old fashions, clothes, movies, and music over the past year as the world grappled with the task of coping with and navigating a global pandemic. During times of trauma, “our brains often take us to places that we subconsciously designate as “safe,” like past memories of a joyful vacation or happy childhood moments that made us feel loved.”
In 2020, nostalgia manifested itself in tangible products. The Washington Post reported that classic, decades old toys like Barbies, Hot Wheels, and Tonka Trucks were the year’s hottest. Sales of the Tonka Dump Truck alone were up over 250% from 2019. While new and used automotive sales both respectively fell during the height of the pandemic, the market for classic cars did not follow the same trend, but instead soared — fueled by feelings of nostalgia and pent up demand.
Marketers took advantage of the pandemic to push tactics that would pull at the heartstrings of their audiences. In October 2020, ADWEEK ran an article titled “How to Leverage Nostalgia-Based Marketing in a Coronavirus World” that highlighted how companies were playing on feelings of familiarity to sell their products. They noted that hotels were “creating campaigns that draw on the nostalgia of travel 50 years ago, evoking the nostalgia of family road trips and drives to the beach, the mountains, or National Parks” as “in a moment when the present feels uncertain, nostalgia for the past feels solid and steady.”
In a 2008 study, psychologists wrote that “[Nostalgia is] the simultaneous expression of happiness and sadness.” By reminding subjects of nostalgic events in their past, they found, people felt more socially supported. Photographs are one of the most powerful tools used to trigger nostalgia — they evoke feelings of sentimental longing and affection for a period past that remains untouched on paper. And these feelings may have been enough to save the photography market at auction during 2020 and through the pandemic as well.
A Declining Market for Photography
Photography on the secondary market is dictated by an ever changing supply that subsequently influences demand in any given season or year. We can conclude that there is significant demand for a photo if it sells for over its mid-estimate.
In 2007, 39.75% of photographs that were auctioned sold above their mid-estimate. In 2013, this number dropped to 27.3%. And in 2020, only 20.07% of photos that sold at auction sold above their respective mid-estimates.
The overall sell through rate of photographs at auction has also been on the decline, with 2020 marking the first year that the rate dropped below 70%. This downward trend, that has been ongoing since at least 2007, was exacerbated by the pandemic and subsequent auction closures and postponements. The sell through rate for photographs dropped to 66.94% in 2020, down 7% from 2019. The average rate of change for the previous 13 years was only a decline of 1.51% per year.
Nostalgia in Sales
By looking at the percentage of photographs at auction that sold above their mid-estimate we can gain a better understanding of the demand for photographs than by looking at sell through rates alone. As you can see in the graph below, collector demand for photographs was at its highest in 2007. Between then and now, demand has decreased by 19.68%. We can compare this overall demand for photography to the demand for photographs brought to auction each year that were executed during a specific time period to analyze the possibility of buyers’ collective nostalgia impacting the market. Comparing 2020 to previous years will highlight the differences in the market for 2020 specifically, furthering this inference.
In order to attempt to accurately capture the time period that collectors in 2020 would have been feeling nostalgic for, their childhoods, we have to look at a range of execution dates spanning 50 years. The period begins 75 years before the year a photo was brought to auction, and ends 25 years before the auction. For the year 2020, the selected range includes photographs executed from 1945 to 1995. For 2019, it shifts to 1944 to 1994, and so on as the auction year continues back until 2007, where the analyzed years were 1934 to 1984.
The range encompasses the majority of childhoods of potential buyers during any given auction year — from young adults to older, more established collectors. This makes it more likely that in any given time within the ranges analyzed, a photograph would capture the sentimentality of its time and cause an emotional connection for a potential buyer.
Of the works sold at auction in 2020 with execution years between 1945 and 1995, 51.25% sold above their mid-estimate. While the overall results for photographs in 2020 saw a decline, auction performance for photographs from this particular period achieved the highest outcome that this sector of the market has seen in 13 years. In 2019, the percentage of photographs from 1944 to 1994 that sold above their mid-estimates was 44.01%. The overall percentage of photographs that sold above their mid-estimate in 2019, inclusive of pre-1944 photographs, was only 23.84%.
The outperformance of “nostalgic” photographs seems to be a recent phenomenon. For example, in 2007, when the “nostalgia period” included photos executed between 1934 to 1984, there was no differential for “nostalgic” photography. 39.75% of all photographs sold for over their mid-estimates while 39.57% of those from the selected “nostalgic period” sold for over their mid-estimates.
2020 had the lowest overall demand for photographs when comparing it to the past 13 years, exhibited by its percentage sales above mid-estimates, 20.07%. Yet, it had the highest percentage of photographs sold above their mid-estimates that were executed during what we consider to be the range that buyers would associate with feelings of nostalgia, 1945 to 1995. This difference of over 31%, combined with the comparisons to prior years, help us infer that this increase was due in part to buyers craving a sense of normalcy during the pandemic’s bleak times. These photographs, which were executed during their early lives, act as reminders of simpler times.
This inference is further substantiated when we look at artists working during 1945 to 1995 whose works showcase the values that people come to crave when seeking comfort from idealized times in their lives and were some of the many that were in high demand during 2020.
Case Studies in Film Photography
Sally Mann
Digital photography was not commercialized and marketed to consumers until the late 1990’s. As such, the periods analyzed, the earliest being 1932 to 1982 and the latest 1945 to 1995, are almost exclusively comprised of photographs executed on film and printed using traditional techniques. They are also made up of established photographers who, even after the introduction of digital photography, continued to use film for their photographs.
The continuation of the use of film techniques creates an illusion of the same feelings of nostalgia that older photos bring. Fuzzy frames, silver prints, and faded copies evoke memories of an idealized past, even if the subject is from the near present. The materials and how the subject is presented can play tricks on our memories, opening them up for interpretation and triggering nostalgic comfort.
37 1/4 x 46 7/8 in.
One such photographer who continues to utilize these techniques is Sally Mann. At 70 years of age, she is most well known for her large format black and white prints chronicling her children. “Immediate Children,” her third book of photographs, was published in 1992 and received an “overwhelming response” in comparison to her previous publications. Her work was ripe with controversy surrounding how Mann chose to portray her children, resulting in extensive press coverage and subsequent intrigue from the art world.
Since her propulsion into the market, Mann has come to be seen as a critical figure in the modern history of photography. The New York Times has characterized her work as “marked with nostalgia and hidden danger,” due to her work’s presentation and the materials used.
In 2020, Mann’s sell-through rate at auction was 70%. In 2019, her sell through rate was 89.66% and in 2018 it was 95.83%. The sharp decrease in Mann’s overall sales performance in 2020 follows a similar pattern to that of the photography sector of the art market as a whole.
22 1/2 x 18 3/8 in.
Though Mann’s sell through rate dropped substantially in 2020, the demand for the works that did sell increased by almost 30% from previous years. In 2020, 92.86% of Mann’s works sold at auction achieved prices that were above the lot’s mid-estimate. This number has fluctuated for the past 13 years, averaging 60.69% of sales above the mid-estimate, with no single year ever reaching above 89%.
Mann’s work spans the periods used to analyze the uptick in sales above the mid-estimate across the photography market, but her continued use of techniques that evoke feelings of nostalgia lend aid to the argument that this is what has helped the market to sustain itself during 2020 and what has shifted sought after works at auction to those that are executed during or evoke a period of time that is deemed familiar, safe, and childlike.
Tseng Kwong Chi
Tseng Kwong Chi was the “official” photographer of Keith Haring, “recording Haring at work on public and gallery art — from his early guerilla-style underground subway drawings to his large-scale commissions, AIDS-related and political actions, and collaborations with peers.” He was also a photographer in his own right, most well-known for his East Meets West series, where he photographed himself in front of iconic tourist sites in the early 1980s. The series is framed by what the New York Times characterized as Tseng’s “wickedly surrealistic persona — the enigmatic Chinese in what appears to be a Mao suit as the post-modern Everyman” that stands in stark contrast to the many quintessentially American sites that he poses with.
In 2020, seven of Tseng’s photographs were offered at auction, including six from this series and one untitled polaroid portrait. The works are from Haring’s personal collection, the close connection between Haring and Tseng make the images feel as though they were not meant for the public auction at which they were presented. This adds to the familiar feel of the photographs, which seem like they should instead belong in a family album on a dusty shelf.
14¾ by 15 in
With Haring having passed in 1990, the photographs are also a peek into what he held dear. And for those who experienced his influence first hand or now see the effect he has on pop culture, these works hold an added layer of sentiment. All seven photographs sold at auction for above their high estimates, 78% of all of his photographs to do so, signaling an incredible demand for these lots. Before 2020, only one other photograph in this series had ever sold for above its high estimate.
During the pandemic, the sell-through rate of Tseng’s photographs at auction increased to 100%, in large part because of the international attention that Haring’s solo sale attracted. In part, they included photographs of Tseng at Disneyland, Monument Valley, and Cape Canaveral. All were gelatin silver prints.
36½ by 36½ in
Tseng played with the idea of nostalgia in the making of his series, focusing on himself as an eastern “Maoist” figure where one may expect to see a child or a family enjoying their vacation. He now, as a result of this, appeals to different audiences: those who feel nostalgia for the travel of the mid 20th century and family road trips, just as ADWEEK touched on, and those who feel nostalgia for 1980s artistic rebels, pop culture, and performances. All audiences can innately resonate with Tseng’s works in one way or another, as they are universally comforting and evocative of better days.
Conclusion
When the present is uncertain, we replace it with a wistful affection for the past, which seems comparably calm and familiar. Overcome with nostalgia, those affected by the pandemic this year found solace in physical reminders of periods past. While personal photographs can help satisfy nostalgic feelings, those by others can portray an even more idealized version of the time someone has happy personal associations with.
A collectively trying time for the majority of people, 2020 consequently provided us with an interesting case study within a niche area of the art market. While overall sell through rates for photographs experienced a significant drop, demand for photographs executed from 1944 to 1995 rose substantially. One can equate this rise in demand to buyers’ sentimental longing for familiar and less complicated times in their life. As people come to terms with the new “normal”, we imagine that this trend in demand for nostalgic photographs will remain constant.
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